Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources. Examples of such multiple-access networks include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) networks, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) networks, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) networks. A wireless communication network may also be referred to as a wide area network (WAN) or a wireless local area network (WLAN).
A wireless communication network may include a number of base stations that can support communication for a number of devices. A device may communicate with a base station via a downlink and uplink for WAN communication. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the base station to the device, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the device to the base station. The device may also support peer-to-peer (P2P) communication with other devices. For example, certain wireless communication networks may implement technologies such as Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi Direct that enable devices to make a one-to-one connection or simultaneously connect to a group that includes several devices in order to directly communicate data peer-to-peer (e.g., as described in “Wi-Fi Certified Wi-Fi Direct™: Personal, portable Wi-Fi® technology,” the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety). However, because existing wireless communication networks that support P2P connectivity tend to suffer from various drawbacks and limitations, including mechanisms typically used to assign client devices network addresses that are needed to communicate P2P, a need may exist for improved mechanisms to efficiently support P2P communication between devices.